Monday 31st March, 2014.
After feeling slightly stir-crazy last week, we enjoyed a flurry of short outings over the weekend.
On Saturday morning we drove out to the Ayres again. Instead of going to the Ballaghennie entrance we drove north through Andreas and down the Smeale road. This road. which ends at Rue Point, was also under water at the end of winter but much of the water has drained away now. There were just a few small puddles on the road and some pools of water remained in the lower lying areas.
I was hoping to get some bird photos so we headed towards a small thicket of gorse and brambles which is a favourite spot of the stonechats. They are small birds with an distinctive call and the males have bright chestnut breasts during the breeding season. They like to perch on the top of bushes - and they were there waiting for us.
The light wasn't ideal. Hazy but too much glare to get an accurate impression of the colour of the birds. I was using near maximum zoom because the birds were quite nervous. I managed to lighten the next picture on the computer - just to prove that it was a male stonechat.
I am almost certain that this is a female stonechat but I may be wrong. I am surprised that her breast looks so streaky - almost like a juvenile. But it must be too early for the first brood to have fledged.
There were more "little brown birds" having a good splash around in the puddles on the track to the shore - possibly more females. I read that a male stonechat may have more than one "partner", which may explain the large number of females.
We wandered through the marram grass down to the shore. There was the usual sprinkling of oystercatchers and a row of brownish birds - too far away to identify without binoculars. I thought I would take a zoom photo to look at on the computer and aimed the camera in the general direction of the birds. After taking the shot I could no longer see the birds and thought I might have been mistaken. Perhaps I had just photographed a few lumps of seaweed. So I was surprised when I saw the photos on the screen. I had accidentally taken an action shot of four golden plover taking to the air!
On the way home I couldn't resist another photo of the Milntown cottage magnolias because the gate was open! Unfortunately they had stacked two containers in front of the trees - so I just aimed the camera at the upper branches.
In the afternoon we drove to Ballure Reservoir. I was on a wood anemone hunt after being disappointed not to find any by the Auldyn river on Thursday and I knew there were a lot growing near the dam.
There is a very pleasant path around the dam. Very pleasant apart from the slippery, squelchy mud in places. But it was worth braving the mud because there were masses of wood anemones. At first I thought I would have to be content with more zoom photos because they all seemed to be growing on the far side of the ditch carrying water into the reservoir - like these growing with a patch of golden saxifrage.
But further on I found some patches growing on the bank near the path and got my close-up shot.
On Sunday morning we walked up through Skyhill plantation to the "top corner" which has a view up the glen towards Snaefell. The air was still very hazy and the scene was not very colourful.
I walked down to have a closer look at the bare branches of the larch on the left of the previous photo. I wanted to get a close-up of the new needles emerging. I tried to photograph some leaf buds on a larch near the waterfall on Thursday but was disappointed to find that the camera had focused on the background instead of the needles. I love the true green colour of the new larch needles and was lucky to find a branch with some baby cones (female above the twigs and male below - getting ready to drop pollen) as well as last year's cones and a bit of grey lichen.
After that I got a bit carried away with greenery - mainly moss. First, moss growing with some wall pennywort (navelwort) on a rocky outcrop near the top of the path.
And then this feathery moss which I haven't been able to identity. It was growing on damp ground under some ash trees near a stream.
Tim felt like going out again in the afternoon. So we headed to the parking area near the Grand Island. After nearly twenty five years on the Island we are getting into the local habit of using obsolete names to describe areas on the Island. The Grand Island Hotel stood just beyond the north end of the Mooragh promenade for over a hundred years. It closed in 2009 and has since been demolished - but the name remains. "The Grand Island to Dog Mills" used to be a favourite stretch of beach for short walks in the past.
There were a couple of hooded crows, "hoodies", checking for anything edible in the car park.
The tide was well out and there were pools of shallow water trapped behind sand banks. A young herring gull was looking for food amongst the pebbles.
It found something interesting . . .
. . . but dropped it in the water and flew off.
Most of the birds that we saw were adult or juvenile herring gulls but there were a few black headed gulls in groups out near the sea.
And of course the usual oystercatcher.
This morning we headed out to North Ramsey again. We had decided on a short walk around the boating lake in the Mooragh Park - with the added incentive of hoping to get a photo of the house where T.E. Brown, the Manx poet, lived. We knew more or less where his house stood but had never positively identified it - so we took a book with an old photo of the area that showed the house.
We parked near the playground and were immediately able to identify the house - standing above the brooghs in the centre of this photo.
We were frustrated by footpath closed signs at the bottom of the first two paths up the steep bank but finally found a path which wasn't closed and which led almost directly to the house Glan-y-Don.
I took a photo of the plaque on the wall before we walked down another footpath back into the park.
And finally, I took one last photo . . . of the house from across the boating lake.
While we were getting into the car. I heard some raucous shrieks from above. Two herring gulls were perched on a flood light shouting at something or someone - or just having a very loud conversation. I couldn't resist a second "final" photograph and even hoped to get another with their beaks open in full shriek - but they flew away.
I really thought that was the last of the photos - but while I was checking my photos on the computer Tim said that a heron had flown past and landed on the roof of a house across the road. I grabbed the memory card and shot off to the bedroom to get a better view of him.
Then I waited and waited. Hoping to get an action shot of him taking off from the roof but he didn't oblige and I got tired of waiting before he got tired of sitting on the roof.
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